Starbucks

For a child who may experience discomfort on takeoff or landing in air travel, take along a small plastic bag of Cheerios, trail mix, raisins, and or small nuts or candies (depending on allergies, age of the child and health issues, of course). Feed them one at a time to your child. This tricks them into swallowing frequently, which clears their ears. It works like magic and they don't arrive cranky and scared of air travel. Harry and Jean Pope Long Beach Besides carrying a flashlight (keep it on the nightstand)

Los Angeles police on Saturday identified a suspect in the kidnapping and sexual assault of a young Northridge girl last week as a 30-year-old transient with an extensive criminal history. Tobias Dustin Summers, who was released from jail in January after serving six days for a probation violation, is the primary focus of the police investigation, LAPD Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese said at an afternoon news conference at police headquarters downtown. Summers has a criminal history dating back to 2002 that includes charges of kidnapping, robbery, explosives possession and petty theft, Albanese said.

This post has been amended, as noted below. Los Angeles police said they plan to review surveillance video from a Woodland Hills strip mall and surrounding businesses to help determine how a missing 10-year-old girl wound up more than five miles from her home. Nicole Ryan was found about 3 p.m. near a Starbucks, just as the LAPD and FBI were intensifying their efforts to find her with a door-to-door grid search of a two-mile area around her Northridge home. Helicopter news footage showed the redheaded girl apparently healthy.

Everyone hates David (Patrick Huard), and with good reason: The shiftless, selfish 42-year-old butcher is such a screw-up that when he impregnates his girlfriend Valérie (Julie LeBreton), she severs ties so their child won't have to deal with the endless disappointment of knowing him. Great news - David agrees he's not ready to be a dad. Except he already is, thanks to a past gig as a frequent sperm donor. He's fathered 533 children, 142 of whom have filed suit to meet "Starbuck," the champion self-pleasurer of 1988.

Starbucks Corp., already on a tear buying tea, juice and bakery companies, just snapped up its first coffee farm and is planning to double the number of people signed up for its loyalty programs. The company is expanding its roughly 3-year-old My Starbucks Rewards program, allowing customers who buy Starbucks' packaged coffee in grocery stores to earn points that can be redeemed for free treats in the chain's cafes. The Seattle giant, presenting at its annual investor meeting Wednesday, is calling the offering the “first cross-channel, multi-brand loyalty program” ever.

When writer-director Ken Scott and his writing partner Martin Petit began working on the script for "Starbuck," a 2011 hit in Canada that opens in the U.S. on Friday, they were worried no one would buy the premise of a habitual sperm donor who discovers years later he is the father of 150 children. "Each day we would come in to write thinking it is too much," said Scott, 42, who was a member of a comedy sketch troupe before turning to screenwriting (2003's "Seducing Dr. Lewis") and directing (2009's "Sticky Fingers")

Forget what you've seen on "Smash. " Writing an effective theater song doesn't always require blood, sweat and tears. Sometimes all you need is a triple latte, a sexy barista and … many things. So it was on the day 20 years ago when Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich strolled into a Starbucks on Lexington Avenue and 78th Street in New York and crushed on a guy named Taylor behind the counter. As the songwriting team left, they came up with the idea for a lyric - and a song: " Taylor, the latte boy Bring me java, bring me joy" Days later, they were still trying to turn the two lines into a song.

Some people climb mountains. Others explore uncharted wilderness. Beau Chevassus aimed to order the most expensive drink Starbucks could concoct. The Washington state man brought his own 52-ounce coffee mug to the coffee chain. There, he proceeded to order 48 shots of espresso, some protein powder, two bananas, a few caramel drizzle Frappuccino chips, some vanilla bean and a little soy. He called it the "Quadriginoctuple Frap. " Price tag: $47.30. This blew away the previous record holder, a $23.60 drink boasting one Java Chip Frappuccino in a Trenta cup, 16 shots of espresso, a shot of soy milk, caramel flavoring, banana puree, strawberry puree, vanilla beans, matcha powder, protein powder, and some caramel and mocha.

The sixth Cafecito Organico opened today in Burbank, and the latest cafe from the local roaster -- which until fairly recently was roasting coffee in a converted garage in East Los Angeles -- is located in what was formerly a Starbucks . Angel Orozco started the company in 2004, working out of Mama's Hot Tamales Café in MacArthur Park, a nonprofit business incubator collaborating with street vendors. Guatemala-born Orozco built relationships with producers and at first focused on the supply side of the business, then started roasting and selling his coffee at farmers markets, and opened the first retail location of Cafecito on Hoover Avenue a couple of years ago, focusing on single-origin Central American coffees.

The U.S. Postal Service, in its latest bid to save a few billion bucks, plans to stop delivering mail on Saturdays. It's not enough. The ugly truth is that the Postal Service's commitment to universal mail service is no longer financially viable in the age of email, text messages, Facebook and Twitter. As currently configured, it will never again be able to meet its legal obligation to pay its own way. To survive, the Postal Service will need to reinvent itself for the digital age. I have a few ideas on how to do that, which I'll get back to in a moment.